Shades of silence: Why subsidiary managers remain silent vis-à-vis their headquarters

Subsidiary managers as communication pins to headquarters are responsible for providing headquarters with relevant information. While research informs us about what subsidiary managers say, we do not know what they remain silent about and why. Given the importance of understanding information flows within MNCs, I explore subsidiary managers’ motivations for silence vis-à-vis headquarters. Drawing on interviews with subsidiary managers of Western-owned MNC subsidiaries in South Korea and adopting a classical and a social view of agency, my findings suggest that subsidiary managers’ silence is contextual and motivated by three dimensions: managing subsidiary image, managing headquarters relations, and managing local context.